François de Salignac de La Mothe Fénelon, Œuvres, Tome IV, Paris, Imprimerie de François-Ambroise Didot, with cypher of Queen Caroline of Naples 1787

Description

Finely bound leather volume of Œuvres de Fénelon, Tome IV. Paris: Imprimerie de François-Ambroise Didot, 1787. With cypher of C & crown for the library of Queen Caroline Murat (née Bonaparte).

Provenance

Queen Caroline Murat Reine des deux Siciles
Real Casa Carolina
Nicola de’ Sangro, Duke of Sangro

History & Context

This volume formed part of the intellectual and educational culture of Napoleonic Naples and is closely associated with Caroline Murat, née Bonaparte (1782–1839), Queen of Naples from 1808 to 1815. Bound in calf with a gilt crowned “C”, a documented ownership device used on books connected with Caroline, it contains the fourth volume of François de Salignac de La Mothe Fénelon’s Œuvres, printed in Paris by François-Ambroise Didot in 1787. Fénelon’s moral and educational writings were particularly appropriate to the Murat court, where French literature formed an important part of princely and elite education. The volume also bears a later stamp apparently reading “R. C. de’ Mir.”, with the inscription “Duca di Sangro, Presidente”, strongly suggesting that after the Bourbon restoration it entered in the library of the Real Casa dei Miracoli, the successor institution to the Real Casa Carolina, an educational establishment placed under Caroline Murat’s patronage during the French period. A handwritten number, 2039, on an endpaper is likely to be an institutional inventory or shelf number.

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